Feeding your mind is an important aspect of your growth as a person. For most people, the last time they read a non-fiction book is when they leave high school. The traditional route to obtaining a higher education prescribes attending college to obtain a degree in your area of interest. Is this the best way? Like most things in life, I think the most accurate answer is “it depends”.
For some disciplines such as law, engineering, teaching, or medicine attending traditional college is pretty much mandatory. Those professions require very specified training that is practically impossible to get on your own. But what about other professions?
What if you want to be an information security professional, author or life coach? In those situations, formal college education might have less to offer. My primary reason for saying this is that a college education is very expensive and time-consuming.
Traditional Education is Inefficient
Take my daughter as an example. She recently started college in pursuit of a teaching degree. She’s attending a public college and staying on campus. Tuition, dorm, books, meal plan, and other fees add up to approximately $9,000 per semester or $18,000 per year. By the time she obtains her 4-year degree that’s over $70,000. Definitely not cheap.
Colleges have to find some way to justify keeping you in school for a number of years in order to generate revenue. Regardless of your target occupation, you’ll spend at least 2 years learning or re-learning generic subjects. Most every college student is required to take basic English, Math and elective classes. While being able to appreciate classical literature and solve quadratic equations can be useful, most people never use that information in their careers.
Instead of looking at college as a means of collecting wall hangings, let’s talk about its true purpose.
Feeding your mind is an important aspect of your growth as a person.
Purpose of Education
The word “education” comes from the Latin word “educo”. Loosely translated it means to “bring up or draw from within”. With that we can say that the purpose of education is to obtain the knowledge that brings out the best in us. The medium doesn’t really matter as long as it makes us a better version of ourselves.
With our definition established, I’d like to discuss a few avenues of education that I’ve found really useful in growing my career.
Specialized Courses
Say your goal is to become an information security professional. You could attend college but this probably isn’t the best way. I’ll share how I did it. I began by purchasing specialized courses on the subjects I was interested in learning. I ensured they offered certifications upon completion. Certifications are a great way to establish a level of proficiency in your field of interest. I was taught exactly what I needed to know through written material, video and lab exercises. This “no fluff” approach was a much more efficient way for me to obtain the knowledge I needed.
A large benefit to taking specialized courses is that the material is produced or taught by industry professionals with extensive experience. Instead of learning the theoretical way of accomplishing a task, you’re shown how it’s actually done in the real world.
The length of most specialized courses typically ranges from days to a few weeks. The time commitment is much less than traditional college. Because the material is very focused, it’s a better way to learn because you become completely immersed in the subject. This is very different from English today, history tomorrow, and political science at the end of the week.
YouTube, Internet Forums and Google
In the late 80’s, if you wanted to learn a detailed subject, your options were fairly limited. You could attend college, seek out an expert or visit your local library.
The Internet has changed all of that. In my opinion, it’s truly one of humanity’s greatest achievements. YouTube, Internet forums and search engines have placed most of the world’s information at your fingertips. If you want to learn something new there are so many options. You can read about it on a blog, ask someone on a forum or watch it being done via YouTube.
This blog is a great example. I built this entire blog by following guides on YouTube, reading forums and emailing experts when I needed help. Granted I’m pretty technical by nature, but that doesn’t mean I’m a web developer. By making use of freely available information, I was able to create a forum to share my thoughts with the world. It’s even available in multiple languages.
Could I have gone to college to become a web developer? Sure. But that would have taken a lot longer than the month I invested. The end result likely wouldn’t be much better.
A word of caution is in order. Even though the Internet makes large amounts of information easily accessible, that doesn’t mean that all of it is valuable. It’s important that you scrutinize the source to make sure that what you take in is actually beneficial or accurate.
Even though the Internet makes large amounts of information easily accessible, that doesn’t mean that all of it is valuable.
Teaching
I can imagine the weird looks I’m getting for this one. Using teaching as a means of learning might not initially make sense. Hear me out though. I’ve found that one of the best ways to test your knowledge in an area is teaching someone else. It forces you to dig deeper into the topic than you otherwise would have. Having your audience ask questions will expose your knowledge gaps. This will give you direct areas to focus on improving.
Venues that are great for getting started with teaching are local workshops. Most cities have groups of people that regularly assemble to share knowledge. The next time they’re looking for speakers, take it as an opportunity to share what you know. You may not be an expert, but you probably know more than some of your audience. That’s all it takes to provide value.
Use the fact that you’re teaching others to educate yourself.
Where Do Books Fit In?
Books are important. I use books to establish the knowledge foundation for my area of interest. Well-written ones offer in-depth coverage of the given subject at hand. My recommendation is to find and read the best rated books in your area of interest. Then use specialized courses and the Internet to fill the knowledge gaps.
Here’s an example:
Say you want to learn how to invest your money. I would probably start out by finding a well-written article on the subject. The article will outline the process and identify the books you should read to get started. Upon reading those books, you’ll have a base to learn from. From there you could seek out seminars on investing or participate in Internet forums. This will help you round out your understanding. You’ll be able to approach the actual art of investing with much more confidence following this route.
At no point did you set foot in a college yet you were still able to acquire a very valuable skill.
Closing Thoughts
I don’t want this article to come across as me bashing college. Education is very important and for some professions, college is the best way to go. I simply want to challenge you to become more creative and ask yourself if what you’re trying to do really requires that kind of time and financial commitment.
College is touted as the conventional path to success. Conventional paths are based on conventional thinking. Conventional thinking comes from what most people consider to be the best way of approaching or solving the task at hand.
Here’s the issue. Most people don’t achieve extraordinary levels of success. Unless your plan is to be ordinary, it makes sense to consider options outside of the status quo.
Unless your plan is to be ordinary, it makes sense to consider education options outside of the status quo.
Do you agree with my line of thinking as far as alternate forms of education? Am I wrong to discourage college for all be very certain fields? Let me know in the comments below!